A PAGE OF JOY

During the summer holiday my Beloved and I took our grandchildren – aged 7 and 10 years – to the National Space Center in Leicester, it was GREAT! We watched a presentation in the Planetarium showing the Creation of the Universe, spectacular graphics and crammed full of amazing information, all in “easy to understand” language (?) the children could tell their Mother much more about it than I could when we got home! The story of Creation told in 25minutes - WOW!

What I did say though, was that I am always impressed by the fact that themore we learn through scientific research, the more the sequence of creation events in the Bible appears to be more or less accurate. NO - I’m not a Creationist, someone who believes that the six-days story told in Genesis is literally true as written. It is a story told by folk trying to explain the wonder of creation.

Humans have always told stories to help themselves and others to try to get a grasp of the unknown – the unknowable even - stories of myth and legend, stories of heroes and mystery, truths wrapped in wonderment. This led me to consider - what do I believe about The Creation, how did it all happen? When I talk about this to children, I tell the sequence that is in the Bible, but after each “day” I say “And this took millions of years – but to God, it only seemed like one day”. Thinking about it now, I find I can’t improve on that.

Watching the Planetarium show explain about neutrons, chemicals and atoms whizzing around in space and coming together to form minute life forms and so on, it seemed to me that it was like a great musician composing a wonderful symphony, where there had formally been nothing, there is now glorious music – in his head. Next the composer wants the music to exist outside of his brain, so gradually he builds up the melody, introducing musical- themes and strands, each tiny note in its place, conducting the orchestra and making the symphony flow and expand until all the parts come together to give life - to the music he created in his mind.

So, if I were to spin a Creation story around a campfire it might go something like this - God composed the music of the Universe in the vastness of his mind, conducted his symphony over millennia - giving life to it in the Galaxies.

You see - I simply don’t know the HOW but I believe that the WHY is love. Love eventually walking this earth, Love born to show us that we don’t have to understand God to be able to call him Father. Love taught us to Trust. Astronomers say that the Universe is still expanding, it has no centre and it has no edge – can you imagine that – WOW!

​Joy Yorke

A benefice of the Church of England within the Diocese of Peterborough